


Question of Instrumentality

by virus21



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Gen, One Shot, Philosophy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25214176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virus21/pseuds/virus21
Summary: What motivates someone to create something like Instrumentality? What justification makes one destroy humanity in order to save it?
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Question of Instrumentality

Golgotha. A place where the greatest sinners are sent. Odd name for a place of punishment for the dammed, but since when have names ever always made sense. A massive prison complex, built underground and located....well, that part is for only those in the know.

One prisoner was given a special cell, not only for the purpose of his unusually medical needs, but for he was possibly the greatest monsters in recent human history. Sat he did, wires and cords plugged into cybernetics, tubes feeding nutrients into what remained of the flesh. His only visitors, the medical techs that came to tend to his life support systems.

“Keel Lorenz” a voice called his name. It wasn't the voice of the techs. Keel looked up at the source. It was a young man, one that Keel was familiar with “Shinji Ikari. So we finally meet. Curious that you have come here. I don't assume you are my executioner”?

“Hardly” Shinji spook, hardy keeping the venom in his voice at bay “You're punishment was life, as in you live as long as we can maintain it, trapped in this pit”.

“Then why do you seek an audience with me” Keel asked “One would assume that I would be possibly the last person you would ever want to speak with”.

“Under normal circumstances, that would be true” Shinji explained “But I need a personal matter to discuss”.

“Personal matter”? Keel asked, a sense of intrigue infecting his voice “And what sort of personal matter could I help you with”?

“Why”? Down to the point, a simple question.

“Why did I and my followers do what we did?” Keel answered back “I think you would have read all the reports and SEELE's own archives. But that wasn't what you where truly asking, was it? You wish to know what could motivate one such as I to perpetrate such acts”. Shinji said nothing, though his facial movements clearly showed his answer.

“The answer is simple” Keel continued” Mortality”.

“Mortality?” It wasn't a answer Shinji was expecting.

“Yes, mortality” Keel repeated “Not in sense of a person's life and death, but as humanity as a whole. Tell me Ikari, how long do you think human civilization has existed”?

“A few thousand years or so” Shinji answered.

“About 11,000 or 10,000 years or so” Keel answered “Tell me, what do you know of me?”

“Mostly rumor” Shinji answered “That you have been around for centuries, that you were people of legend and history, such as Cain, Noah, Alexander, Caesar. Some say you were never human in the first place. Does this have a point”?

“Simply setting the stage a bit” Keel said “No, it really doesn't. Who I am or was is mostly window dressing as it were”.

“Back to the point” Keel continued “A few millennia after the first cities, the first empires had been made, was the Bronze Age. It was a golden age compared to the primitive hunter-gatherers of old. The great monuments had been constructed and the first religions had been finalized. All primitive on a technological scale compared to us, but sophisticated. And then it all just ended”.

Shinji didn't know what the point this history lesson had, but he hoped it was getting there. The more he stayed in Keel's company, the more his stomach turned.

“No one knows what happened” Keel continued “All is known was that there was an upheaval. Famine, rebellion, invasion, pestilence, all turning what was a golden age into centuries of darkness”.

“Nice history speach, Keel” Shinji snarked “But what does this have to do with Instrumentality and mortality?”

“All that world was gone” Keel answered, ignoring Shinji's impatient tone “We know little of what happened or why. The deeds and triumphs, the sins and failures, all lost or conscripted to legends, distorted into fairy tails. It is a act that has repeated throughout history to various degrees.”

“So you were trying to preserve civilization?” Shinji asked “Hard to do when you ravage most of the planet, isn't it”?

Keel laughed or what he could manage as laughter giving his current physical state “Of course not. First, Second Impact was not exactly what my design was. However, the wars that sprang from it were, abeit ones that SEELE had a hand in.”

“So what then”? Shinji asked.

“It was to preserve human knowledge” Shinji wasn't expecting that answer. It lacked the megalomania that many would attribute to men like Keel, the fanaticism that came with mass destruction. 

“Yes” Keel added “The World War created by Second Impact was not a question of if, but when. Had no Second Impact happened, the mad destruction of such conflict, the environmental damage that would have a hand in causing it, all would have happened anyway. The contact with Adam only accelerated what was already in motion.”

“So you saw history repeating itself?” Shinji asked.

“Indeed” Keel answered “You are still young, so you have little to look back on. Or in your case, want to, I suppose. The older you get, the more you look back, the more you wonder what came before you and what was it truly like. Then you lose memory. Places that you are fond of gone forever, replaced by something else. Imagine all that is lost, good and bad and then wonder, what happened to it all. Instrumentality was...”

“Instrumentality was a way to preserve humanity in a single state” Shinji interrupted, figuring out what Keel was getting at.

“Yes” was simply all Keel said.

“You wanted to keep all that humanity was at this point, to keep it in an ark of sorts, as to make sure what we had become was not to be lost”? 

“Now you understand it” Keel said.

“Understand, yes. Condone, no” Shinji spat, clearly not liking this explanation.

“In all that death that happened, is not such a rebirth worth it? Is it not worth keeping what we are preserved, even in a less that ideal form, as to not be lost in the dust of time”?

Shinji approached the cell, a blank expression on his face. He looked at Keel and uttered on quite word:

“No”.

Keel was a little disappointed, but not surprised “I didn't think you would understand the greater vision. Your mother didn't either”.

“Because what ever flaws she had and she had many obviously” Shinji retorted “She probably thought that it was insane. Imagine that”,

“Is it insane to bring finality to a cycle that constantly repeats itself” Keel said, trying to raise his voice, but unable “Is it madness to understand that humans never learn and it was time to force the issue? Your parents went to darker paths too in order to have their own scenarios finished, will you do that same, especially for those pretty young ladies that you live with?”

Shinji turned toward Keel, hardly holding back his anger “With all you're power, intelligence and resources, you should have found another way. You could have, but you wanted some grand plan, some process written is ancient writings that you didn't understand fully. As for my ladies, as you put it, I want to make the world better with them, for them and all the others in my life and beyond. No grand plan, no great change of the world, just one thing at a time. I hope that when I pass, that those who come after me can finish the job”.

With that, Shinji turned towards the door. As he walked, he stopped for a moment, not taking his eyes from the door “I will say, you did give me something to think about. It will give me and other some perspective about the future, regardless with how insane your motivations”.

Shinji then left, leaving Keel alone in the dark, the lights of his life support the only illumination remaining. In the dark, he processed Shinji's last words with a single one of his own:

“Indeed”.


End file.
